May 11, 2012 10:31 AM

Can you identify this bug for us? (see attached pictures - the bug is on a mm scale in the first picture).

I found attached to my daughter this morning. It's 2mm long, with a black, flattened oviod, unsegmented body. It must have managed to attach itself quite quickly as this happened whilst she was getting dressed / running around the bedroom with no trousers on, rather than when she was asleep. I had to give it quite a tug to get it off her and it left a big (considering the bug's size) bite. We have found similar bugs in our bedroom and have had similar bites, although we hadn't associated the two before.

Keep an eye out for any cold or flue like symptoms in the next few weeks and tell the dr she was bitten by a tick if she starts to feel unwell. It is more of a problem if people don't know they have had a tick (which happens frequently) and then there is a delay in diagnosis and treatment.

I have to admit I couldn't tell if the abdomen was unsegmented from the pics and had gone with the description which said unsegmented. Those look to me like 8 legs, but if you think there are 6 it could still be a tick larva, they behave in the same way and look very similar other than leg number. The major identification issue is, as Lewis points out, whether or not the abdomen is segmented.

If I'm trying to look at a picture quickly I right click, save as. then open the download in Picasa. This free program has a small selection of tools that help. ie crop, fill light and colour balance. If I need to get technical or silly I use Photoshop.

Convergent evolution is cool! If the body is segmented you are right. It is amazing how morphologically similar things with the same life habit can be even when around 500 million years of independent evolution separate them, down both lineages, that amounts to a total of 1 billion years of evolutionary distance!